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The Monolith
The Monolith is a large structure of immense power, held in regard as the most influential landmark and structure in all of history. The Monolith has remained with us for thousands of years, probably longer then the two dominant races, the wol-hovens and snareths, that inhabit this world itself. Appearance: If one were to look at the Monolith without any historical background knowledge of the significance of the object, then you would find the whole thing relatively unremarkable. From a casual perspective, you would see two pillars of what looks like dark granite sticking out of solid rock. These pillars are three meters thick which rise about 30 meters into the air. These two pillars start to curve slightly at the 20 meter mark until they join up with each other, forming an arch. The separate pillars themselves are spaced about 20 meters away from each other. The ground on which the arch stands on appears to be a slab of smooth, solid rock, the shape being a perfect circle extending 30 meters from its centre point, being in the middle of the arch. While this would certainly be fairly interesting from a common civilian's perspective, it would give off the impression of being a simple man-made construct. If this arch was not the history-making source of fantastic power and mystery that it is, it would probably have been considered something akin to a relatively popular tourist destination with many archeologists, historians and others coming to find out what it was built for and who built it. Activation: Every year, for not-even-the-gods-know how long, the Monolith would suddenly become, as everyone calls it, "active" and display properties that no mere slabs of rock and granite should do in any normal situation. It was likely that anyone who first witnessed this activation would have been considered insane by his peers and the Monolith itself may even have been considered a fantastic myth at some point, if history were to be remembered that far back. The entire process would take about a minute, though the process is so spectacular, according to onlookers, that it feels like the whole thing takes up to an hour, though this is most likely due to the excitement and confusion born out of the activation, rather than the Monolith being able to bend time in some way (though this has raised some theories in itself). Note: The exact timing of how long this activation process time lasts is relatively unknown, as the process of studying it is relatively disorienting for scientists and the like whenever it occurs, not to mention the time-bending theory. The time given is simply the “best guess” that can be achieved from the various times the effect has been studied. '' '''Step 1:' At the very start of the activation, sometimes referred to as "second zero", a seemingly normal lightning strike will hit the Monolith at its very tip of the arch, without any warning prior to the strike. Step 2: Between 1-30 seconds, the Monolith is bathed in a reflective coat of what onlookers call “liquid glass”. This coating constantly moves around the Monolith and the surface of the stone it is on but never spills over to actual ground. A low humming sound is heard by people up to 20 metres away; with slight vibrations felt up to 50 metres away. Step 3: Between 31-40 seconds, the coating of liquid glass disappears and the spacing between the pillars is lit up with a “wall of light” that is generally blinding to whoever is directly looking at it. The low humming sound increases to 50 metres, while the vibration can be felt a mile away. The light itself has been compared to a lighthouse whenever this occurs at night. Step 4: Between 41-55 seconds, nothing apparently changes with the Monolith and the light it emits. However, it is at this time that what look like strange, shadowy silhouettes of various creatures can be seen constantly shifting within the arch, if people can stand the intensity of the light. This constant shifting settles down and remains one constant shadow of whatever size when second 50 has occurred. Step 5: between 56-60 seconds, the light intensifies to almost double the brightness. A loud crack ''sound is emitted that can be heard from several miles away. The humming sound and vibrations, however, disappear at this point. After the 60 second timer is up, the light dissipates suddenly and any evidence that anything had happened at all is gone, save for the creature now left lying, usually unconscious, at its base. '''Gate Races:' The creature that the Monolith leaves behind after this confusing ordeal is generally referred to as a “Gate Race”. This title is really only supposed to apply to races that have not been officially named (either chosen by themselves or by their new hosts). However, the term is commonly used to refer to all of the intelligent races regardless of how long they have been a part of this world. As far as history knows, wol-hovens and snareths are the only two races in the world (not counting the life forms without human-like level intelligence) that were not brought forth from the Monolith. Animals that are not as intelligent enough to be able to be taught about technology and culture of the world (such as livestock) are not referred to as a Gate Race, even when they first appear from the Monolith. Why this is has been lost to history. The status of the Gate Race is generally varied, though most of them are completely fine physically, at least according to the people examining them. Most creatures are moved to a special facility and put into a safe-room where they can be studied and get their bearings in peace, assuming that they ever wake up. Most of the creatures that appear generally never wake up, either having died during the process of the Monolith activation or soon after due to various reasons. Most of the creatures that do die after arrival typically turns out to be via suffocation, probably due to whatever land they were from not having the same chemical content in the air that it does here. Humans are an example of a Gate Race that has been able to survive in the conditions of this planet, but are clearly not used to the air here than from where they came from. This manifests itself as some sort of asthma that most humans are born with until whatever apparent “toxin” that is in the air makes them incredibly sick at the age of 50, after it presumably builds up in their systems to unbearable levels that, eventually, kills them. With the small intelligent percentage of Gate Races that do survive their first night, their emotional and physiological well-being is usually compromised and takes time to build back up to standard levels. While most creatures that do survive eventually get their bearings, there are a few that fly into a panic or rage and are required to be euthanized for the protection of others or if it’s clear that cooperation with said creature is impossible, though the latter reason is usually only chosen after a week of constant trauma. After the first week of examining the Gate Race, steps are taken to learn the language of said intelligent creature and try to establish a relationship with it. As far as records show, every Gate Race individual that has been able to be communicated with has had no recollection of any significant event or action taken place that could had led to the possibility of the Monolith “choosing” them to be taken to be brought to Rakiscen. While some may remember a “bright light”, “strange tingling” or other sensation, not one has remembered exactly what happened. Also, another common factor would be a very specific case of both long and short-term amnesia. It can take years for the affected to remember most of their lives, while some memories are never regained. Usually, the creature’s name, race name, age, general personality and other personal details remain intact but most memories concerning the technological, political, general history or other aspects of his species is completely gone. Sometimes, fortunately, creatures are able to retain some memories of that aspect of their lives and have been able to contribute to the worlds understanding on specific subjects, usually technology. If a Gate Race has been able to make it this far, full integration in the Rakiscen world as a whole usually occurs, where a council is set up to find a home and job for their new member of society. If the Gate Race individual turns out to be able to reproduce, whether through pregnancy before the Monolith activation or through other means, steps are also taken to ensure a future for the race as a whole. Most of the time, though, the creature just ends up dying years later and is put into the record archive and forgotten as time goes on, though there have been some individual Gate Races that have made a large impact on society in their brief lives. History: It is generally unknown of how long exactly that the wol-hoven and snareth race have known about the Monolith gate or how much they knew about it at the time. Because of the rough grasp that the modern day has of the far past, many parts of history can only be speculated on. It is safe to say, however, that the Monolith has been directly and indirectly influencing history for tens of thousands of years. The earliest record of the native races being aware of the power of the Monolith is from the vast slave system that the wol-hovens established somewhere beyond 40,000 A.T. They knew how the Monolith sometimes came forth with Gate Races that could be exploited and bred to their liking. Some Gate Races were used for food, others for labour, research, hunting sport, maybe even pets. The potential list goes on. It is likely that there could have been a few other Gate Races that had been bred in the early years and then wiped out when their use fell out of need or wanting. Even the snareths, the only other native life form originally of Rakiscen, were subjected to the whip and fang of the wol-hovens. Population and predatory wise, the snareths were possible roughly the same as the wol-hovens and there were probably numerous enslavement wars at the time. However, the reason for wol-hoven success in their war with their relative equals was that they probably only took the general fight to the snareths proper when they had already established their slaving empires, hence had a general sense of unity, as a race, to take a stab towards this large goal. It is likely that the snareths back then were consisting of various scattered tribes of underground nests instead of any established kingdoms, so the initial strikes against them would be met with little resistance and whatever forces that the snareths would muster afterwards would be undisciplined and lack unity with each other. Whatever enslavement wars that was actually fought; the wol-hovens had complete control over the world and the other races roughly by 30,000 A.T and would enjoy their racial dominance for over 20,000 years. However, by 7,395 A.T, the lerren-akka race, at this point, successfully convinced the wol-hovens to cast aside their slavery ways and take steps to build actual kingdoms and a “positive” future for everyone. While the reasons for this sudden change of heart are varied and argued, the most likely reason is that, during this time, the lifestyle of the wol-hovens had relatively degraded from their grand slave empires into roving bands of slave warlords fighting each other over slaves and the Monolith. Various wol-hoven warlords realised this and, using the lerren-akkas as diplomats, set up alliances with rebel slaves with promises of freedom and used the extra forces to take down other warlords and establish regional dominance themselves. Afterwards, Civilization Proper, as it is referred to, is born as kingdoms are once again springing up and various Gate Races are gaining freedoms and somewhat small amounts of political power. Most of these nations that sprung up, whether via the aforementioned alliances or from numerous warlords banding together for protection, remained with their relatively fascist style form of government, just without official slavery; at least a step forward, if anything. Most of the warlord-protection formed kingdoms retained their slaver culture but slavery itself was going to start fading out and continue the new trend of obscurity, though there are still some modern nations now that practice it. Some nations would try to form equality, to an extent, and form democracies of varying degrees, though most ended up as constitutional monarchies. Some took the “freedom” a bit too far in the other direction, as when the slaves found out that they could live a day, at least, a free man, riots and rebellion became relatively common. Some of them were even successful and communism was born a few years in. The next few thousand years would be the most turbulent as the various nation-states would rise and fall frequently. The Monolith was still a hotly contested area and was the sole reason for many dozens of wars. It was common for a single nation to be fighting three separate wars and political backstabbing also seemed to be a pastime. While this “Civilization Proper” phase got off to a bad start, things started calming down slightly at 3,258 A.T, in that the larger nations had finally started to carve themselves into decent sized chunks of land from the bloody corpses of their many previous competitors. Tensions between the larger nations were still relatively high and wars over the Monolith were still as common as the sun setting. The core reason that this era of apparent “Civilization Proper” was so violent was that the wol-hovens still held much political power over most of the world and there was still plenty of hatred between them and every race it enslaved to last almost as long as the idea of slavery ever existed. It certainly didn’t help the idea that racism was coming to an end when most of the equal-rights communist states were generally destroyed almost as soon as they were formed by neighbouring powers. Eventually, the Lerren-Akka would once again step in to represent the general interest of all when putting forth the idea of a regulated control of the Monolith, splitting its “spoils” among the nations of the world and making the region around it a zone of neutrality, constructing embassies there and setting up the foundations of charity organizations, support relief for war-torn countries and the idea of a sort of “Union” between the nations of the world. This agreement, called the “Monolith Standard and Regulation Pact”, would be signed by many major nations and several smaller ones. With the signing of this agreement, the new timeline of “Monolith Time” was born, with year 0 being the signing of this historical pact with the time before referred to as “Aging Time”. While wars have still been fought and the idea of a global union has fallen in and out of discussion, the stability of the world was drastically increased since then. While various political, natural and Monolith-related disasters would always shake the stability and ideals of the Pact, the nations of the world would always come back to the common practice of how to deal with the Monolith. Theories: There are many theories surrounding what the Monolith is, how its existence is possible, what its actual purpose is, who built it, if it runs on technology or magic and so on. Some theories are more outrageous or sceptical then others. Below is a list of some of the more possible scenarios among the long list of mystery surrounding this great structure. 1) '''The most common theory is that the Monolith was built by some advanced race of some sort, probably not of this world. While this is relatively obvious, the real speculation comes from why any race would do this in the first place. Building an inter-dimensional portal (it is unknown how far the portal can reach) that’s whole purpose is to apparently grab unsuspecting random creatures from across the universe doesn’t make sense in terms of why it would be designed to do this in the first place. Many scientists agree that the Monolith isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. It is possible that it is supposed to connect between two or more places, perhaps linking to other Monoliths, and that some sort of calamity occurred that made it “malfunction” the way it does. '''2) '''In conjunction with the first theory, many speculate what happened to the race that built the Monolith(s?) as well. Whatever mysterious race that built the Monoliths would not have left such a piece of technology lying around, especially if it was apparently malfunctioning in such a dangerous way. The race would have had to have been extremely advanced to construct something as powerful as the Monolith, whether by using some form of magic or technology (or both). Whatever happened to this race, they may have had to flee from Rakiscen for some catastrophic reason, though that of course raises the obvious question of what sort of event could force such a powerful race to flee an entire planet. Some speculate that the Monolith could actually be a relatively “trivial” piece of technology to whatever race constructed it, so wouldn’t be considered that important to either take with them, dismantle or repair. '''3) '''There are many that think that the Monolith, rather than being designed as a connection and is simply malfunctioning, is actually doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. The Monolith could have been built to place certain creatures on Rakiscen to try and construct a complex and balanced ecosystem, or even to force several intelligent life forms into contact with each other and create a “paradise” together. If this is true, however, then the Monolith would probably be considered to be malfunctioning in this regard as well; over 90% of the Gate Races that are sent through suffocate or die in some other way due to Rakiscen’s conditions being too hostile for them to survive in. Some argue that the Monolith is not designed to “know” which race is good to survive in the conditions of Rakiscen, though it is also argued that the Monolith ''should ''know this if it was designed to place random creatures into an ecosystem. '''4) '''One of the more likely theories is that the Monolith itself is alive or sentient in some way. This theory has more merit and probabilities then the others since there have been events that have occurred which suggests that the Monolith is, at least, aware of its own situation. The most infamous of these suggestions came in the form of a plague. An archaeologist team, with the backing of several nations, started to actually excavate the area around the Monolith in 5,417 A.T to see how far the platform that the Monolith stands on goes into the ground. A few months into the excavation, the Monolith activated prematurely, without warning and only three months since the last activation (the survey itself was started as soon as the last activation occurred to avoid this very thing occurring in the middle of digging). No apparent Gate Race appeared. The survey was called off in order to investigate why that happened. A few days later, a massive plague broke out around the Monolith and spread across the region. Quick and deadly, this plague killed at least 200,000 people of various races over several years. Eventually, the plague subsided and simply vanished, though it was to be several more months until anyone would approach the Monolith again. Considering how it is incredibly unlikely that there would be a disease that could affect almost all forms of current sentient life as this plague did, the Monolith most likely called it in due to the “intrusions” that the survey team was committing. Nations around the world took a more cautious approach towards the Monolith after this. '''Facts & Myths: Although there are many things about the Monolith that the world, at large, do not know, there have been various little bits of info that scientists, historians and the like have been able to gather about this amazing structure. Of course, with such mystery comes the inevitable myths and fiction that typically surround such a power. Unlike the theories, however, these myths have been proven to be completely false, or at least called into question greatly more often than the theories themselves. Facts: 1) '''The precise direction that the Monolith is facing has always been contested, with many written texts from years ago stating that it is facing one direction or another. A long-term project of studying the Monolith proper found out that the Monolith is actually rotating at a very slow rate. With making predictions, and keeping record of the exact position it is facing every year, it has been deduced that the Monolith is able to rotate a full 360 degrees clockwise every 365 years. Why it does this is unknown, or how. '''2) '''The excavation survey team, mentioned in the Theories section, was able to dig about 16 metres around the Monolith before it activated and released the plague. They found that the solid stone slab that the arch sits on extends straight down and never gave any signs that the stone was going to end as the excavation team were digging. It may be possible that the stone slab could extend downwards for miles, though how it was implanted in the ground like that in the first place is unknown. '''3) '''It is worth noting that the apparent granite and stone that the Monolith and its base are made out of is not actually stone and granite, although that fact is rather obvious considering what the Monolith has been able to achieve. Whatever actual material that the Monolith is made out of, it has a remarkable resistance to physical influence, as it is generally agreed upon that a construct of this kind would have toppled over or been withered by time if it were a normal building. The Monolith was once hit with a catapult’s boulder, yet showed no signs of damage. '''4) '''The lightning strike that hits the Monolith at the start of its activation isn’t coming from the sky, but seems to actually come from the Monolith itself. Where the lightning goes after it emits from the arch or why it happens hasn’t been determined. This strike can also “jump” to people nearby and kill them instantly. There have been no recorded survivors of these unfortunate accidents. '''Myths: '''1) '''While it is true that the land within a few miles radius of the Monolith is relatively parched, with unusual looking rocky scorch marks on the ground and a generally lifeless look in general, the Monolith is not slowly killing the land around it. The Reason that the land around it looks like that is because the world has been battling over the Monolith for so long that much of the ground has been trampled and compacted, preventing life to grow effectively there and revealing the scattered rocks underneath. Although life could potentially grow back, the area has purposely been salted so that, if a creature comes through the Monolith and somehow escapes, then it can be easily tracked down since there is little cover for it to head for initially. '''2) '''There are many various cults and religions based around the Monolith or at least mentions of it somewhere in the various holy writings. Some prophets hold themselves to have been marked or even contacted from the Monolith and ordered to carry out its “will”. However, this always turns out to be hearsay, as these individuals are either out right lying or simply have delusions about the Monolith’s grandeur. '''3) '''Some people also believe that it is possible to go through the Monolith if they stand at the centre of the arch when it activates or head into it during activation. The first option results in the lightning strike instantly killing the person, as it has always done. The second option results in the individual “disappearing” from view within several metres of the Monolith, assuming onlookers can even see him due to the light. While this has led to the belief that it is possible to go through, the individual who made the attempt is always found where they disappeared from, apparently having died of extreme heat.